Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, defended why so many search terms are hidden within the Google Ads advertiser console and reports. She said, "the threshold increase was solely privacy-driven." She added this was a question she asked when she was joining Google, suggesting it was important for her to learn before joining the company.
The topic came up when Collin Slattery posted on his blog and on LinkedIn and X about how many hidden search terms there are within Google Ads. He wrote:
We all assume that hidden search terms waste money, but I wanted proof.So I analyzed $20 million in spend, 14 million clicks, across 933 campaigns to see for myself.
Turns out they do and to a staggering degree!
For every $1 in ads you buy, Google siphons $0.85 in forced inefficiency through hidden search terms.
He also shared this graphic:
Ginny Marvin from Google replied on LinkedIn and X - here is her full response:
This was something I asked about when joining Google. What I learned: the threshold increase was solely privacy-driven. A search term is reported when it meets sufficient search volume across all Google searches. The threshold applies to all queries.I get it’s frustrating. Our aim is to help you understand how your customers find you on Search, while respecting user privacy. We’ve worked to surface more insights in privacy-safe ways: aggregating misspelled terms with their correctly spelled queries, Search Terms Insights, etc.
There’s always a tradeoff between volume & marginal ROI. Our goal is to hit your bidding target. Queries are matched when predicted to help achieve your desired ROI, regardless if they meet reporting thresholds.
Performance isn't homogeneous within a campaign or bidding portfolio. It’s helpful to see your analysis found little variance in non-brand campaigns when segmented by visible vs. “other". The variance in brand is something we can look at more closely, but segmenting by other dimensions may provide more insight.
We'll continue to seek ways to improve visibility in privacy-safe ways. And we're looking to achieve more consistent ROI across traffic segments.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn and X.
Update from Collin and Ginny:
Hi Collin, The threshold applies to every query the same way. Any search term that is not surfaced in the report simply has not been searched enough times across all Google searches to meet the privacy threshold. It either meets the privacy threshold and gets reported or it…
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) July 9, 2025
Another Update:
We are keenly aware of the concerns and I’ve engaged on this topic many times in the years I’ve been here. Our aim is to strike the right balance between advertiser visibility with user privacy.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) July 11, 2025
The global digital privacy and regulatory landscape has evolved significantly from…
We are keenly aware of the concerns and I’ve engaged on this topic many times in the years I’ve been here. Our aim is to strike the right balance between advertiser visibility with user privacy.The global digital privacy and regulatory landscape has evolved significantly from the early days of digital advertising. This has necessitated changes in data handling and availability across the industry. That’s the impetus, full stop. And we’re not alone in having privacy thresholds for reporting search terms.
While we don’t share specifics, queries are surfaced when there have been enough searches across all Google searches to meet the threshold. The privacy threshold applies to all queries. We have additional advertising policies for categories such as healthcare to protect user privacy and follow advertising regulations (e.g.).
To reiterate an important point, Smart Bidding doesn’t consider whether a query will be reported or not when opting whether and what to bid. It looks at the query’s predicted ability to help achieve your desired ROI.
As I’ve noted, we’ve taken several steps to help bring more visibility in privacy-safe ways – surfacing zero-click terms, aggregating misspellings, adding Search Terms Insights, among others – and we continue to focus on this.
